#origin management services

[glasurgeist]

This year's project has been teaching myself DMing and game design. For my first campaign, I made Shrike here as a DMPC to make my learning process less rocky for my players.

They all proceeded to pairbond to the *checks notes* ... druncle goblin middle manager in their guild? Whoops.

[originexterminators]

Visit us for pest control services. Dealing with bed bug infestation in singapore? Contact ORIGIN Exterminators for pest management solutions. For Bed Bugs Treatment :- https://www.origin.com.sg/bed-bugs-treatment

[frogtrenchcoat]

ok this is my last discoursepost. hopefully. i unfollowed tpwrtrmnky or however she spells it so i shouldn't be seeing any more things that piss me off. i agree w her on the vast majority of things but reblogging someone saying "inb4 men should be included in conversations about what is misogyny" (paraphrasing) explicitly about trans men is definitely a line for me lol. (i also very much disagree w the person that the person who said that was responding to, for the record.)

[soft-serve-soymilk]

Also speaking of my son Dism scrolling through windows help forums is so fun because yay :) that's my son :)

[citrlet]

Since you seem to be using the EA app, would you mind telling me how functional/dysfunctional it is? I haven’t played the game in a while, so I haven’t switched over yet, but origin REALLY doesn’t seem to want me to keep using it. I don’t really want to have to play an offline game online though, so how different is it? Thanks if you’re willing to answer!

i've only been using it for like a week so i can't really speak for the functionality just yet 🙁

[whoreiaki-kakyoin]

I don’t have the spoons at ALL to call Netflix after they fucked up our account and tell them to fix it but I would like to put on something for some mindless relaxation time that isn’t an asmr or gaming stream….. gonna just start pirating shit bc I’m fed up and so burnt out.

[fingertipsmp3]

Lads. How do I defrost hot dog sausages. Can I defrost hot dog sausages? Should I even have frozen them in the first place??

[imwritesometimes]

EA app my behated

[whispering-kavka]

the struggles of today proved to me that i might indeed be a little mentally unwell

[gothhabiba]

🍉🇵🇸 eSims for Gaza masterpost 🇵🇸🍉

Which eSims are currently being called for?

Connecting Humanity is calling for:

Nomad (“regional Middle East” plan): code NOMADCNG (they are completely out)

Simly (“Palestine” and “Middle East” plans)

Airalo (“Discover” plan)

Gaza Online is calling for:

Holafly (“Israel” and “Egypt” plans): code HOLACNG

Nomad (“regional Middle East” plan): code NOMADCNG (can now be used multiple times from the same email)

Airalo (“Middle East and North Africa” plan)

Sparks (“Israel” plan)

Numero (“Egypt” plan)

For Connecting Humanity: if you sent an eSim more than two weeks ago and it is still valid and not yet activated, reply to the email in which you originally sent the eSim. To determine whether the eSim is still valid, scan the QR code with a smartphone; tap the yellow button that reads “Cellular plan”; when a screen comes up reading “Activate eSIM,” click the button that says “Continue.” If a message comes up reading “eSIM Cannot Be Added: This code is no longer valid. Contact your carrier for more information,” the eSim is activated, expired, or had an error in installation, and should not be sent. It is very important not to re-send invalid eSims, since people may walk several kilometers to access wifi to connect their eSims only to find out that they cannot be activated.

If a screen appears reading “Activate eSIM: An eSIM is ready to be activated” with a button asking you to “Continue,” do not click “Continue” to activate the eSim on your phone; exit out of the screen and reply to the email containing that QR code.

Be sure you're looking at the original post, as this will be continually updated. Any new instructions about replying to emails for specific types of unactivated plans will also appear here.

Check the notes of blackpearlblasts's eSim post, as well as fairuzfan's 'esim' tag, for referral and discount codes.

How do I purchase an eSim?

If you cannot download an app or manage an eSim yourself, send funds to Crips for eSims for Gaza (Visa; Mastercard; Paypal; AmEx; Canadian e-transfer), or to me (venmo @gothhabiba; paypal.me/Najia; cash app $NajiaK, with note “esims” or similar; check the notes of this post for updates on what I've purchased.)

You can purchase an eSim yourself using a mobile phone app, or on a desktop computer (with the exception of Simly, which does not have a desktop site). See this screenreader-accessible guide to purchasing an eSim through each of the five services that the Connecting Humanity team is calling for (Simly, Nomad, Mogo, Holafly, and Airalo).

Send a screenshot of the plan's QR code to gazaesims@gmail.com. Be sure to include the app used, the word "esim," the type of plan (when an app has more than one, aka "regional Middle East" versus "Palestine"), and the amount of data or time on the plan, in the subject line or body of your email.

Message me if you have any questions or if you need help purchasing an eSim through one of these apps.

If you’re going to be purchasing many eSims at once, see Jane Shi’s list of tips.

Which app should I use?

Try to buy an eSim from one of the apps that the team is currently calling for (see above).

If the team is calling for multiple apps:

Nomad is best in terms of data price, app navigability, and ability to top up when they are near expiry; but eSims must be stayed on top of, as you cannot top them up once the data has completely run out. Go into the app settings and make sure your "data usage" notifcations are turned on.

Simly Middle East plans cannot be topped up; Simly Palestine ones can. Unlike with Nomad, data can be topped up once it has completely run out.

Holafly has the most expensive data, and top-ups don't seem to work.

Mogo has the worst user interface in my opinion. It is difficult or impossible to see plan activation and usage.

How much data should I purchase?

Mirna el-Helbawi has been told that large families may all rely on the same plan for data (by setting up a hotspot). Some recipients of eSim plans may also be using them to upload video.

For those reasons I would recommend getting the largest plan you can afford for plans which cannot be topped up: namely, Simly "Middle East" plans, and Holafly plans (they say you can top them up, but I haven't heard of anyone who has gotten it to work yet).

For all other plans, get a relatively small amount of data (1-3 GB, a 3-day plan, etc.), and top up the plan with more data once it is activated. Go into the app’s settings and make sure low-data notifications are on, because a 1-GB eSIM can expire very quickly.

Is there anything else I need to do?

Check back regularly to see if the plan has been activated. Once it's been activated, check once a day to see if data is still being used, and how close the eSim is to running out of data or to expiring; make sure your notifications are on.

If the eSim hasn't been activated after three weeks or so, reply to the original email that you sent to Gaza eSims containing the QR code for that plan.

If you purchased the eSim through an app which has a policy of starting the countdown to auto-expiry a certain amount of time after the purchase of the eSim, rather than only upon activation (Nomad does this), then also reply to your original e-mail once you're within a few days of this date. If you're within 12 hours of that date, contact customer service and ask for a credit (not a refund) and use it to purchase and send another eSim.

How can I tell if my plan has been activated? How do I top up a plan?

The Connecting Humanity team recommends keeping your eSims topped up once they have been activated.

See this guide on how to tell if your plan has been activated, how to top up plans, and (for Nomad) how to tell when the auto-expiry will start. Keep topping up the eSim for as long as the data usage keeps ticking up. This keeps a person or family connected for longer, without the Connecting Humanity team having to go through another process of installing a new eSim.

If the data usage hasn't changed in a week or so, allow the plan to expire and purchase another one.

What if I can't afford a larger plan, or don't have time or money to keep topping up an eSim?

I have set up a pool of funds out of which to buy and top up eSims, which you can contribute to by sending funds to my venmo (@gothhabiba), PayPal (paypal.me/Najia), or cash app ($NajiaK) (with note “esims” or similar). Check the notes of this post for updates on what I've purchased, which plans are active, and how much data they've used.

Crips for eSims for Gaza also has a donation pool to purchase eSims and top them up.

Gaza Online (run by alumni of Gaza Sky Geeks) accepts monetary donations to purchase eSims as needed.

What if my eSim has not been activated, even after I replied to my email?

Make sure that the QR code you sent was a clear screenshot, and not a photo of a screen; and that you didn’t install the eSim on your own phone by scanning the QR code or clicking “install automatically."

Possible reasons for an eSim not having been activated include: it was given to a journalist as a back-up in case the plan they had activated expired or ran out of data; there was an error during installation or activation and the eSim could no longer be used; the eSim was installed, but not activated, and then Israeli bombings destroyed the phone, or forced someone to leave it behind.

An eSim that was sent but couldn’t be used is still part of an important effort and learning curve. Errors in installation, for example, are happening less often than they were in the beginning of the project.

Why should I purchase an eSim? Is there any proof that they work?

Israel is imposing near-constant communications blackouts on Gaza. The majority of the news that you are seeing come from Gaza is coming from people who are connected via eSim.

eSims also connect people to news. People are able to videochat with their family for the first time in months, to learn that their family members are still alive, to see their newborn children for the first time, and more, thanks to eSims.

Some of this sharing of news saves lives, as people have been able to flee or avoid areas under bombardment, or learn that they are on evacuation lists.

Why are different plans called for at different times?

Different eSims work in different areas of the Gaza Strip (and Egypt, where many refugees currently are). The team tries to keep a stockpile of each type of sim on hand.

Is there anything else I can do to help?

There is an urgent need for more eSims. Print out these posters and place them on bulletin boards, in local businesses, on telephone poles, or wherever people are likely to see them. Print out these foldable brochures to inform people about the initiative and distribute them at protests, cafes and restaurants, &c. Also feel free to make your own brochures using the wording from this post.

The Connecting Humanity team is very busy connecting people to eSims and don't often have time to answer questions. Check a few of Mirna El Helbawi's most recent tweets and see if anyone has commented with any questions that you can answer with the information in this post.

[thymewayster]

Really good Twitter thread originally about Elon Musk and Twitter, but also applies to Netflix and a lot of other corporations.

Full thread. Text transcription under cut.

John Bull @garius

One of the things I occasionally get paid to do by companies/execs is to tell them why everything seemed to SUDDENLY go wrong, and subs/readers dropped like a stone. So, with everything going on at Twitter rn, time for a thread about the Trust Thermocline /1

So: what's a thermocline?

Well large bodies of water are made of layers of differing temperatures. Like a layer cake. The top bit is where all the the waves happen and has a gradually decreasing temperature. Then SUDDENLY there's a point where it gets super-cold.

That suddenly is important. There's reasons for it (Science!) but it's just a good metaphor. Indeed you may also be interested in the "Thermocline of Truth" which a project management term for how things on a RAG board all suddenly go from amber to red.

But I digress. The Trust Thermocline is something that, over (many) years of digital, I have seen both digital and regular content publishers hit time and time again. Despite warnings (at least when I've worked there). And it has a similar effect. You have lots of users then suddenly... nope. And this does effect print publications as much as trendy digital media companies. They'll be flying along making loads of money, with lots of users/readers, rolling out new products that get bought. Or events. Or Sub-brands.

And then SUDDENLY those people just abandon them. Often it's not even to "new" competitor products, but stuff they thought were already not a threat. Nor is there lots of obvious dissatisfaction reported from sales and marketing (other than general grumbling). Nor is it a general drift away, it's just a sudden big slide. So why does this happen? As I explain to these people and places, it's because they breached the Trust Thermocline.

I ask them if they'd been increasing prices. Changed service offerings. Modified the product.

The answer is normally: "yes, but not much. And everyone still paid" Then I ask if they did that the year before. Did they increase prices last year? Change the offering? Modify the product?

Again: "yes, but not much."

The answer is normally: "yes, but not much. And everyone still paid." "And the year before?"

"Yes but not much. And everyone still paid."

Well, you get the idea. And here is where the Trust Thermocline kicks in. Because too many people see service use as always following an arc. They think that as long as usage is ticking up, they can do what they like to cost and product.

And (critically) that they can just react when the curve flattens But with a lot of CONTENT products (inc social media) that's not actually how it works. Because it doesn't account for sunk-cost lock-in.

Users and readers will stick to what they know, and use, well beyond the point where they START to lose trust in it. And you won't see that. But they'll only MOVE when they hit the Trust Thermocline. The point where their lack of trust in the product to meet their needs, and the emotional investment they'd made in it, have finally been outweighed by the physical and emotional effort required to abandon it. At this point, I normally get asked something like:

"So if we undo the last few changes and drop the price, we get them back?"

And then I have to break the news that nope: that's not how it works.

Because you're past the Thermocline now. You can't make them trust you again.

[gippyworm]

Fuck streaming services fr

[arsenenicholas]

https://goodlawproject.org/crowdfunder/nhs-cyp-guidance/?fbclid=PAZXh0bgNhZW0CMTEAAaadkVMoRUHpcFptnjlifnc1xJ0i7YGVi78tfv2vEXVaVIQDPTEp1-ozNcY_aem_AfqNP9xEERFn6GRCZCIP7B2RriLi8ZN7pVAFzmNwdvqIXW0nmc1mTe5Hq0UV3xC6VPWdYe1x64wHk7O6-HPOhIdf

Please share, tag someone who could bring this to a lot of people, and post to other platforms. Not originally mine, idk who is the source of the screenshots.

Image ID under cut

Image ID:

In thick white text on black background-> NHS ENGLAND ARE PLANNING A HONEYPOT WHERE THEY SEND ALL KIDS ON GIDS WAITLIST TO CAHMS TO HAVE THEM BE ASKED IF THEY ARE TAKING BLOCKERS/HRT VIA PRIVATE OR DIY ROUTES

Text is broken and in the middle is an excerpt from a leaked nhs document-> a) For medication sourced directly (e.g via the internet), explain the increased risks of harm due to the unregulated nature of these medicines/products. These may include the use of counterfeit chemicals, unsafe/unknown ancilliary ingredients or variability of potency etc. More information can be found here (link to nhs website). // b) Do not initiate or continue prescribing puberty surpressing hormones or gender affirming hormones. The General Medical Council's guidance to medical professionals on 'bridging prescriptions (a course of endocrine intervention managed by a healthcare professional outside of the specialised gender service while an individual is waiting to be seen) does not apply to care offered to young people under 18 years of age. // c) If the child/young person or their carer disregards your advice and you consider that this puts the child/young person at increased risk, then a safeguarding referral might also be appropriate in line with standard safeguarding approaches. Discuss with your line manager and your organization's safeguarding team.

Thick white text on black background continues-> ANY WHO SAYS YES AND DO NOT DESIST FROM DOING SO WILL BE THREATENED WITH SAFEGUARDING REFERRAL (TAKEN INTO STATE CARE)

Next image ID:

In black text on white background, from the news article linked above-> It seems to us - and to those inside the NHS who have leaked the document to us - that what purports to be an "assessment" in fact an exercise in bringing very significant pressure to bear on trans youth and their families to cease private treatment, backed up with a threat of a safeguarding referral to social services if they do not. // We are concerned about what appears to be a misleading exercise in gathering data on which trans youth are obtaining private treatment from abroad, for the purposes of seeking to cause or compel them to stop treatment.

In the same thick white text on black background as previous image-> So an internal NHS document has been leaked basically asking trans kids on excruciatingly ling waiting lists to come to a 'mental health assessment' where the NHS will harvest their personal information & threaten their families with a social services referral if they're found to be on private blockers/hormones & refuse to come off them. // This country is for dogs i swear.

[qqueenofhades]

I think its genuinely fascinating how Biden has somehow become the bad vibes sin eater for the party. I'm seeing people who were doing the whole "voting doesn't matter both old men are the same" pivot hard into voting as harm reduction. The anti voting rhetoric has COMPLETELY lost The Youths on tiktok. People suddenly remember the good things the Biden administration has done but don't associate Harris with any of the things they didn't like. In my swing state volunteers are signing up in droves. People feel ENERGIZED, the vibe shift pre and post Biden dropping from the race has just been insane

Y'know, that is a... good way of putting it. It's also why I'm quite sure that Biden has probably been planning it for a while. I don't think he was intending to step down, and didn't want to be forced out at the drop of a hat, but after he realized that the circus was never going to stop until he did, he did the honorable fall-on-his-own-sword thing and definitely, DEFINITELY spent some time choreographing this behind the scenes. Because while the roll-out has been very smooth, it could just as easily (as many of us were expecting) have been a total disaster, and that doesn't happen without SOME planning. It's also entirely possible that the campaign staff flipped from Biden to Harris are superhuman, to come up with a massive online roll-out, new branding, new signs (they had plenty of 'em in Wisconsin yesterday), new everything, but I'm guessing it's a combination of both. Biden has spent his entire political career being underestimated, and after we literally made a meme out of Dark Brandon juking the Republicans out of their shoes, we should definitely give credit where credit is due in how masterfully he pulled it off.

Because we have had eight years defined by the central question of Whether The President Is a God King Who Should Serve For Life (the MAGAts obviously think yes), the sheer idea of a president willingly giving up his power BEFORE he had to is also novel and admirable. It's sad that this is the case, but so be it. The Republicans also got a heaping helping of Be Careful What You Wish For that was undoubtedly brilliant; they've been yelling for years that Biden is old and frail and can't serve and should step down. Biden went "lol okay" and gave it to them, and now they're fucked.

Aside from that, on the most basic level, it's far, far easier to see the actual difference in the parties with Harris as the nominee, just because it shows that one party is willing to make progress and reflect the new demographic reality and social mores of America, and the other one is not. Now to be clear, Biden deserves an incredible amount of credit for coming out of retirement (he was ALREADY 77 years old when he became president and had had decades of a long and respected career in public service behind him) to fight, beat Trump, and deliver an incredibly successful presidency. He held the line against authoritarianism at home and abroad, he rescued the trashed American economy and managed a world-leading recovery from Covid, he stood up for democracy, he spent four years filling the benches with liberal judges to reverse even some of the Trump/McConnell hack job, he finally passed comprehensive infrastructure investment and the Green New Deal under the name of the Inflation Reduction Act -- and so on. Many of these priorities had been languishing for decades or were completely trashed under Trump, and he could not have done so much in just 4 years without all that age, skill, and experience. Hence why all the Ageism!!! was (aside from being a Republican/media smear job) dumb. He's able to do the job because he has had decades to study. Turns out that makes you actually pretty damn good at it.

Yes, Biden could not do as much as he wanted or originally planned, had to deal with MAGA Republicans and Joe Manchin/Kyrsten Sinema sabotaging him the whole time (lololol Manchin, possible possessor of the World's Biggest Ego and with Trump around that's saying something, popping out of obscurity to self-righteously announce he would not be willing to be Kamala's VP. YEAH ASSHOLE. LITERALLY NOBODY ASKED YOU. NOBODY WHATSOEVER. NO MATTER WHAT HAPPENS AT LEAST WE WILL SOON NO LONGER HAVE MANCHIN IN THE SENATE). And yes, Biden made some serious mistakes of his own, because he IS from an older generation and a different style of doing politics/different beliefs that no longer resonate with the younger segments of the electorate. But this old white Catholic guy at the age of almost 80 still managed to be the most progressive president ever, coming in at a moment of incredible domestic and international crisis and getting us safely to the other side, and all cynicism, criticizing, and caveating aside, he deserves an incredible amount of credit for that. I mean that absolutely, and I am very grateful.

As I said, willingly relinquishing that power takes guts, and when Biden saw the writing on the wall that he had to sacrifice himself, he took his time, he didn't jump too early, and he didn't jump too late. On the most basic level, it becomes a hell of a lot easier to make the "both parties are not the same" argument when one is running a (comparatively) young brown woman and the other is still running their loathed felonious old demented orange traitor. Most Americans are not plugged into policy minutiae and details. They look at Biden-Trump, they see two old white guys. When you take one of those old white guys away (who goes in a self-sacrificially heroic manner and in sharp contrast with the coup-happy fascist) and put Kamala Harris in there instead, it generates an obvious jolt. People can see for themselves that there is a real difference that doesn't rely on closely reading news and tracking complex policy, because as noted, most Americans simply don't. The brown first-generation American daughter of brown immigrants is a quantifiably different story from "old white guy career politician," which for better or worse is how Biden was seen, especially the old part. We needed that establishment expertise to beat Trump in 2020; I still think Biden is the only one who could have done it, and as noted, we owe him a great debt for doing so.

However.... 2024 is not 2020, and it is not 2016. There has been this HUGE and unbelievable swing to Kamala because she represents the antithesis of what the last eight years of Trump-induced anger, fear, panic, chaos, and hatred has stirred up. That's why people are so ready to rally around her, just as they were (I daresay) around Obama in 2008, after the exhaustion, chaos, war, and mounting economic misery of Bush. Trump has been out of office for the last four years, but his shadow over the American political landscape has been omnipresent. Now people know that we finally have a real chance at getting rid of him forever, and just as Biden was uniquely positioned to capitalize on that in 2020, so Harris is now. Which is why, however tough it will be, she has a real shot at winning. I can guarantee the Republicans know that, and are shit scared. Because the Black Lady Army of Democracy has indeed arrived in force to Get This Shit Done and I don't know about you, but I found that incalculably comforting:

Yikes! All lined up for Kamala pic.twitter.com/Dt4OCDp7WX

— Alex Cole (@acnewsitics) July 24, 2024

This, at the most basic level, is what scares fascists the most, it's exactly what we need now, and what Harris is uniquely positioned to mobilize, along with her gangbusters appeal to young voters:

This is the energy we need. This is what Biden saw and planned for and which he launched us into, and where all that experience and age paid off. This is why people, even people otherwise disengaged, disillusioned, or checked out of the tedious and mind-numbering drudgery and depression of American politics, are responding to it. Because it's easy to understand, it offers hope, and it tells a very simple story that is nonetheless long overdue:

Thanks so much, Joe. Go absolutely waste that orange fucker, Kamala. We got your back.

[tecpixel]

https://tecpixel.com/real-estate-photo-editing

[artemisdesari-blog]

Sometimes being the mum who exists in fandom spaces leads to awkward, even concerning, conversations. Such as the one which happened this morning. The mum of my daughter's best mate asked me if one of their mutual friends had sent her a specific message. This message was a link to a fic on ao3, if this had been a G rated fic this conversation would not have happened. It was not G rated. It was an E rated fic. Our kids aren't even 12 yet. As it happens, both of our kids have their internet access heavily locked down and monitored. They have phones because of how their school manages homework. The mutual friend, however, is not so monitored. Or she wasn't, given what her mum found she's about to be. This kid had found a fandom, joined it, and found it chock full of antis. The fic had been sent to her by one of them as an example of the sort of terrible people out there who need to be harassed and attacked because they wrote a smutty story.

Someone thought it was appropriate to send written porn to an 11 year old to encourage her to attack the author.

This resulted in a very awkward conversation where I had to explain to multiple horrified parents the anti culture that is becoming so prevalent. The fact that there are adults who use that purity message to groom kids. The way they escalate and how it bleeds into real life. One parent told me she'd wondered why her 14 year old was suddenly concerned about the two year age gap between her parents. The more I explained, the more absolutely ludicrous it sounded and the more baffled these poor mums looked. More than once I was told "but the characters aren't real, it's really weird but it isn't hurting anyone". Which is the point. The fictional situation isn't hurting anyone. The person who sent porn to an 11 year old is.

Was the person who sent it the author? Doubtful, that thing was tagged in the extreme. Was the person who sent it an adult? Almost certainly. The parent who's child received the original message has found more concerning stuff and gone to the police, but from the language the person doing the sending was in the US. We aren't. Did my daughter receive it? No, she isn't interested in that fandom and therefore wouldn't have bothered with it. Is this the fault of the author? No, they didn't send the link, they didn't ask to be harassed, they wrote a story and put it on ao3, the website created in response to rampant censorship and designed to allow for all kinds of fiction. Is this the fault of the parents? Partially, they should have been looking at their daughter's internet use and clocked what was happening sooner. Is this the fault of the child? No, she's 11, she didn't know better.

This has been a difficult day. Multiple parents have had their eyes opened to parts of fandom culture they had no idea existed. And the thing of it is, they aren't concerned about the why of anti rhetoric. They don't care about the adults writing about teens or rape or incest or torture or any of the rest, because they looked at the clearly tagged and rated fics and figured that it worked the same as a warning on any streaming service. They only cared because some utterly vile individual decided to expose their child to something this girl might not have looked at for years.

Proshippers did not cause what I have spent afternoon helping several sets of parents navigate. Antis did. Normally I'm fairly quiet about the whole debate because I just want to get on with my life and share my experiences. Today I got dragged into that mess in my every day life and the adults in the equation didn't react the way Antis like to think they would. They didn't condemn the author. They condemned the anti who shared the work with a preteen.